February 1913

February 1, 1913 (Saturday)

• The United States Senate voted, 47-23, in favor of amending Article II, Section 1, of the U.S. Constitution to limit American presidents to a single, six-year term. The measure for an Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed "by the necessary two-thirds vote and one to spare," and sent to the House for consideration.
• The Ottoman Empire accepted the terms of peace proposed by the Great Powers to end the First Balkan War.
• U.S. President William Howard Taft signed the bill authorizing the construction of a memorial to Abraham Lincoln in West Potomac Park, Washington, D.C.
• Daniel J. O'Conor and Herbert A. Faber, employees with Westinghouse Electric, filed a patent grant for a laminate as a substitute for mica used as electrical insulation. U.S. Patent No. 1,284,432 was granted on November 12, 1918. The material evolved to become Formica which is now used for many applications.

  February 2, 1913 (Sunday)

• The first train departed from New York City's Grand Central Terminal, having been rebuilt, opened a moment after midnight as the world's largest train station. At 12:01 am, the Boston Express No. 2 became the first train to depart, with a Mr. F. M. Lamh of Yonkers, New York credited as the first person to buy a ticket in the new terminal. On its first day, between 12:01 am and 7:00 pm, the new station attracted 150,000 visitors. "At the height of its activity, in the years just after the Second World War", one historian noted, "Grand Central served about the same number of passengers as the world's busiest airport does today, even though Grand Central uses only 1 percent as much land as the airport does."
• Rienzi Melville Johnston resigned as U.S. Senator from Texas after only four weeks in office, after having been appointed on January 4. U.S. Senator-elect Morris Sheppard took office a month ahead of schedule to complete the six-year term of Joseph Weldon Bailey, who had resigned.
• American poet Joyce Kilmer wrote his most famous poem "Trees" over an afternoon while staying at a family home overlooking the Ramapo Valley in Mahwah, New Jersey. It would be published in the August issue of Poetry later that year.

  February 3, 1913 (Monday)

• Fighting resumed in the First Balkan War between the Ottoman Empire and the Balkan league at two sites, Adrianople and Çatalca, after the peace talks in London broke down, and an agreed upon cease-fire expired.
• At 11:00 am local time, five minutes after the Delaware House of Representatives had received the state Senate resolution for ratification, Delaware became the 36th state to vote in favor of the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, allowing Congress to create a federal income tax. The vote in both state houses was unanimous. With three-fourths of the 48 U.S. states having ratified the amendment, "The first change in the Federal Constitution in forty-three years was made certain." Wyoming and New Mexico voted their approval later in the day.
• The German railroad car manufacturer Gothaer Waggonfabrik began an aviation division, which would create one of the first heavy bombers used in war: the Gotha twin-engine bomber that was used for bombing raids on England during World War I.
• The first Far Eastern Championship Games was held in Malate, Manila, with the Philippines, China, Japan, Siam, Malaysia, and Hong Kong participating in a precursor to the Asian Games.
• A rail station opened in Noble Park to serve the Gippsland railway line in Victoria, Australia.
• The Hippodrome opened in Aldershot, England with a billing to show variety shows twice a night. The building was eventually demolished in 1961.

  February 4, 1913 (Tuesday)

• The President of El Salvador, Manuel Enrique Araujo, was fatally wounded by assassins, despite the initial report that none of his wounds were considered to be serious. Araujo died five days later. American warships were dispatched to Central America to stop the threat of a revolution.
• The wife of British Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott departed from Los Angeles on the way to meet her husband in New Zealand. Mrs. Scott, unaware that her husband had died in Antarctica, told reporters, "I expect to meet Capt. Scott in Lytleton in March... I have not heard from my husband for about eighteen months, but I have no doubt whatsoever that he will arrive in New Zealand safely." The next day, she set off from San Francisco on the steamer Aorangi.
• Born:
• *Rosa Parks, American civil rights activist, leading figure in the Montgomery bus boycott; as Rosa McCauley, in Tuskegee, Alabama, United States
• *Richard Seaman, British racing driver, 1938 German Grand Prix champion; in Chichester
• Died: Gordon Sprigg, 82, four-time prime minister of the Cape Colony, South Africa

  February 5, 1913 (Wednesday)

• First Lieutenant Michael Moutoussis and Ensign Aristeidis Moraitinis of the Greek Navy conducted the first aerial attack on a warship in history, dropping four bombs on Turkish ships in the Dardanelles, albeit without inflicting any casualties.
• Claudio Monteverdi's last opera, L'incoronazione di Poppea, was performed theatrically for the first time in more than 250 years, in Paris.
• Romania and Austria-Hungary signed a treaty to renew their military alliance for seven years. When World War I broke out, however, Romania would remain neutral and would later enter the war against Austria-Hungary and Germany.
• The United Kingdom's House of Commons passed the Welsh Church Disestablishment Bill.
• The National Diet of Japan voted to censure the government of Prime Minister Katsura Tarō following riots.
• Spain resumed diplomatic relations with the Vatican after a nearly three-year break. Fermin Calbeton y Planchon presented his credentials to the Pope, and then spoke with the Pontiff in the latter's private residence.
• Rail stations were added to serve the North Coast railway line in New South Wales, Australia, including Gloucester, Taree, and Wingham.
• Born: Takeo Nakasawa, Japanese mathematician, conceived the theory of matroid. His work was largely forgotten and would be rediscovered more than 60 years after his death; in Kōchi Prefecture, Empire of Japan
• Died: Johan Ehrnrooth, 79, the fifth Prime Minister of Bulgaria for three months, from May 9 to July 13, 1881

  February 6, 1913 (Thursday)

• Bulgaria refused to allow foreigners to leave Adrianople in advance of the city's conquest.
• Born: Mary Leakey, British anthropologist who discovered the first Proconsul skull, a primate considered an ancestor to humans, wife of Louis Leakey; as Mary Douglas Nicol, in London, England

  February 7, 1913 (Friday)

• Opera singer Vanni Marcoux, baritone and star of the Boston Opera Company, was hospitalized with a concussion sustained while he had been taking his bows. Marcoux had been enjoying the thunderous applause of the audience and did not realize that he was standing directly below the heavy stage curtain as it was being lowered, and was struck on the head.
• Born: Ramón Mercader, Spanish special forces agent, known for assassinating Leon Trotsky in Mexico City under orders of the Soviet Union; as Jaime Ramón Mercader del Río, in Argentona, Spain

  February 8, 1913 (Saturday)

• Russian pilot N. de Sackoff becomes the first pilot shot down in combat when his biplane was hit by ground fire following a bombing run on the walls of Fort Bezhani during the First Balkan War. Flying for Greece, he came down near Preveza, on the coast north of the Ionian island of Lefkada, where he secured local Greek assistance, repaired his airplane, and flew back to base.
• For the first time in more than 110 years, an incumbent U.S. President personally spoke before a house of the United States Congress. U.S. President William Howard Taft appeared before a session of the United States Senate to deliver a eulogy for the late Vice-President, James S. Sherman, who had died in November of 1912. "Not since 1801," the New York Times observed, "has the President spoken directly to either house of Congress." Thomas Jefferson had set the precedent of communicating to Congress by written message only, which in turn had broken the tradition set by Presidents George Washington and John Adams in speaking at the opening of Congress.
• The United States and Nicaragua signed the Wertzel-Chamorro Treaty, with the U.S. paying $3 million to Nicaragua for the option to build a canal across the nation to link the Atlantic and Pacific, and the right to set up bases on Corn Island and the Gulf of Fonseca. Construction of the Panama Canal was almost complete; the U.S. Senate's session ended before the treaty could be voted on.
• What would later be called the Ten Tragic Days began when Mexican Army cadets loyal to Generals Felix Diaz and Bernardo Reyes violently freed them from prison in Mexico City where they had been jailed for leading government revolts last November.
• Explorer Douglas Mawson, the last surviving member of a three member party of explorers on the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, made it back to the expedition's base at Cape Denison. Mawson, who had suffered frostbite and illness during his trek to the base, was informed upon his arrival that the expedition ship Aurora had departed a few hours earlier, and that another ship would not relieve the base for another year.
• At Mansfield, England, thirteen coal miners at the Bolsover Colliery were killed when a bucket with 800 gallons of water fell from a chain, and crashed into the workers 500 feet below.
• The Ottoman Navy warship Asar-i Tevfik ran aground while on raid on Bulgarian ports during the First Balkan War. Despite attempts to salvage her, the ship was considered a total loss.
• The U.S. Navy destroyer was launched by William Cramp & Sons in Philadelphia. It would serve in World War I before it was decommissioned in 1922.
• Died: John George Brown, 81, British-American painter, known for his depictions of ordinary New York City children described as "street urchins"